Tom Boonen was the name on everyone’s lips of potential winners as the Tour hit Belgium. Boonen managed to escape a crash and had most of his team still in tact driving a sprint train to the finish. The timing was all set except for the last leadout man Geert Steegmans who was told not to sprint until the final 200 meters because of the uphill nature of the finish. The last second sprint was too much for Boonen to come around giving the domestique a rare moment to shine. Quick Step can take solace in a One-Two home soil victory. Boonen seemed just as happy for Steegman’s win as Steegman’s himself. So Quick Step should not mind too much of the last secong blunder. For a few moments it looked as if the Yellow Jersey might be up for grabs as a crash on narrow road looked to have injured several racers and held back most of the peloton. However, the whole group was marked as finishing at the same time since the last kilometer rule was used.
One by one racers limped into the finish with Alexandre Vinokourov signing the cross on himself thanking the man upstairs for saving him from getting injured. Not that God cares more about a Tour victory or Super Bowl Touchdown or any of those things. Vino is happy that he escaped one dangerous moment unscathed. In the first week of the Tour you take each day as it comes and try to stay away from crashes and try not to lose any time before you hit the mountains.
Cancellara’s crash result looked worse than it was. Cancellara will be able to keep his Yellow Jersey and continue racing as reported on Team CSC’s web site:
Cancellara crashed sideways into one of the other riders and hurt his hand, so he had other things on his mind than Quick Step’s double victory up ahead, where Geert Steegmans finished in front of team captain Tom Boonen.
“Immediately after the crash I was scared that I was seriously injured, because I seemed to hurt everywhere. But it was probably the surprise of the impact and the fact that it was cold and I was wet, so when I was lying there on the road among all the other guys I did think the worst for a minute. But after I finished the stage and got some dry clothes on and got warm, I felt fine again,” said Fabian Cancellara, who was pleased by the overall result of the day.